


Getting Better

by ByeByeHoverfly



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Awkward First Times, Bottom John, Failure to Use Condoms, M/M, Masculinity, Top Paul, aka john's embarrassed about taking it up the arse, poor lad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:34:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26382709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ByeByeHoverfly/pseuds/ByeByeHoverfly
Summary: Out of all the people Paul's been with—from blushing Liverpool birds to working girls of the Reeperbahn—he's never had a first time like this. No girl has ever been quite so stubborn, so bleeding insistent, yet seemed quite so determined not to enjoy it. None of them ever pulled Harpo Marx faces at him as he tried to get them in the mood, either.Then again, those girls hadn't been John Lennon.
Relationships: John Lennon/Paul McCartney
Comments: 8
Kudos: 75





	Getting Better

**Author's Note:**

> This was spawned by one of those episodes where I write a ton of little stories to “keep myself fresh” for a longer fic, before realising I have eight oneshot drafts running (and still haven’t edited the new chapter). But this thing was already almost done, so…
> 
> Also I'm not really sure if this counts as "mature" or "explicit"—is something porn if it's more awkward than hot? Idk

As his eyes fell to their set-up on the bed, Paul couldn’t help the nervous twist in his gut. There was the mattress parcelled up in Mimi’s stark white bed linens—there were the blanket and top sheet stripped off and bundled at the foot of the bed—there was John, bare and prostrate in the center with a towel under his hips…it all seemed oddly surgical. He was hit with a scent memory of hospital beds, stinging antiseptic, and immediately grimaced the thought away. That was the exact _opposite_ of the mood he’d like to be cultivating.

“You alright there, Macca?” John’s voice gradually tapped into his brain, slightly muffled by the pillow.

“Er…yeah, fine.” Paul shook himself and carried on with his original task—retrieving a tube of lube from the bottom of one of John’s junk drawers. “Are _you_ alright? Still…sure ye want to do this?”

John scoffed. “How many times are you gonna ask me that? Just be a man and put yer dick in me arse.” He turned his face towards Paul, just to give him a a mocking flutter of his lashes. “ _Pretty please_.”

Paul’s eyes rolled of their own volition. He tried to keep his step casual as he approached the bed. _Reluctance_ was hardly something Paul had wanted to feel about being inside somebody for the first time… _and yet_.

Paul was still in a state of lingering shock over the fact that John—spitfire John Lennon, local ted and nuisance, who’d long-since internalised this reputation—had been the one to insist on this whole thing, under the airtight argument that they were ‘ _gonna have to get around to it one of these days_ ’. Paul had assured his friend that he, Paul, would be absolutely fine if John _never_ wanted to ‘get around to it’. Maybe a bit disappointed, sure…but momentary frustration was a lot easier to hack than a scarring sexual experience for either of them.

John, though, had been adamant that if he were going to do _that_ to Paul, he was going try things from the other end, too—was going to try it _first_ , even. Paul might have thought it sweet if it weren’t for the macho bravado John had put into the act. (Oddly enough, his boasts of _higher pain tolerance_ and ability not to _‘squeal like a fifteen-year-old bird’_ were of no comfort.) Paul contented himself with a private promise: if John seemed to ever be seriously uncomfortable, Paul was going to stop then and there, his older mate’s weird tough-it-out complex be damned.

With this thought in mind, and settling himself on the bed, Paul managed to steady his breathing. Straddling John’s legs gave a much more intimate angle than did standing at the opposite side of the room—much better for admiring the body in front of him. Paul’s eyes trailed over the landscape of wispy body hair, thick thighs sloping into a round arse, a muscular back and broad shoulders…a view that would ordinarily be enough to get him at least half-mast, if lingering nerves hadn’t been stretching his insides taut. Too tight to go all melty in arousal.

Pulling himself back into his rational brain, Paul tried to piece together a plan of action. The first step would be…spreading John’s legs, he supposed. He let a shy hand slip down to do just that. But the instant skin touched skin on John’s thighs, the boy startled and jerked them open—jostling Paul so hard he nearly pitched off the bed.

Catching his weight on his left hand, Paul stared wide-eyed at John’s back; there was something of an untamed horse in the knotty muscles, the defiant posture. The younger boy sat back on his heels, distracting himself from the situation by plucking up the little tube of personal lubricant. His short nails—clipped in preparation—picked at ineffectually at the foil under the twist cap. Eventually, with some help from a tooth, he pierced the covering, and made a pleased hum of victory. But the sound faded out as he looked back down at John…and remembered what he was now expected to use the lube _for_.

“Right. I’ve, um…I’ve opened the lube,” he announced, before grimacing at his own awkwardness. But John either didn’t care or didn’t notice, by all appearances totally preoccupied with pulling at the loose threads on his pillowcase. Paul had known Lennon long enough to be able to tell when he’d sunk into his own head—even when said head was buried face-down in bed linens. Paul inched up the bed on hands and knees.

“ _John_.”

Paul tapped a finger on a lightly-freckled shoulder. Wasting no time as John’s confused face emerged, he reached immediately for John’s jaw to cover his lips with his own. He stayed there for a long moment, just a soft pressure, until he could feel John press lightly back.

Paul pulled away and gave John a smile. Still a slightly shaky one, maybe—but the warmth that rekindled in John’s eyes was worth it. At least, it was enough to convince Paul to crawl back down between the other man’s thighs.

Once returned to his battle station, Paul took stock. _Lube, towel, fingers, arse_ —all present and accounted for. He let his hand hover over John’s back, feeling like he should give some sort of warning before touching his bum. _What the hell does one say, though? ‘Incoming’?_

Paul eventually settled for resting his hand on the small of John’s back, letting him feel it inch lower. But before Paul had even touched him _there_ , John was squirming away from the feeling, and Paul got embarrassed—made his fingers trail John’s side, instead, and down to brush against his thighs.

Both hands started to rub there, warming the skin and soothing the bumps that had prickled up from John’s nakedness in the cool room. To Paul’s excitement, John seemed to be relaxing with the strokes. The fit-to-snap sinews slackened bit by bit under his hands. Soon enough, John started letting out little sighs; some time after that, he stopped going rigid after hearing them.

Hands countinuing to knead the soft flesh, Paul circled back up to the tailbone. He steeled himself, and ran his hand downwards—his middle finger swiping through the cleft of John’s arse. The tension returned with force, but now Paul was _prepared_ ; he knew to repeat the effort until John went soft beneath him. Then he paused his hand, made little swipes of his finger, centering in on a rough little pucker that some fevered lobe of Paul’s lizard brain had identified as _the hole_.

John was _sensitive_ , Paul realized. Each brush of a finger drew a new little shiver, and Paul bit back a coo. He knew Lennon wouldn’t appreciate being openly _coddled_ or _crooned at_. Especially not while sat on his belly, on a bed, with another man hovering over him. So instead, Paul channeled his doting urges into gentle circles rubbed round the rim. It was more enjoyable than he’d anticipated, actually—feeling the way it tensed, the little hairs brushing his probing finger. Paul distantly registered feeling warm and heavy in his boxers.

Just as he was thinking the time was right to go further, Paul jumped in shock. What felt like every muscle in John’s body had gone rigid again.

_What the…?_

It wasn’t long before John’s voice broke in: “Well, are you gonna get on with it?”

Paul barely refrained from dropping his head into his hands. (Mostly because, in his current position, that would put his face down between John’s arse cheeks. Something about _that_ situation did a confusing number on his brain.)

“Sure, John,” he replied lightly, trying for ‘easygoing’. “I’m just…finding my way.” Best to pin it on his own inexperience, Paul reckoned, rather than John’s mulish tension. _Maybe it was better to just start in, and let John get used to it?_ He sighed, pulled his finger back, and covered it in a squirt of lube. Paul fanned his hand out on John’s arse, index angled back so as not to smear the goop on John’s skin. Then he bent the lubed finger towards the opening.

“Alright, I’m…” he let the sentence go unfinished, as the tip sunk into John’s hole.

_Phew_.

Paul waited some half a minute before wiggling the finger, buried only down to the first knuckle, in tight little circles. The only indication of any feeling on John’s end—pain or otherwise—was the humid _huff_ of his heavy breath against cotton. Paul figured he’d be okay to move a bit. He played with the opening for a while, sometimes pulling out a bit to stretch at the rim, or pushing down to the next knuckle, getting the muscles acquainted with the intrusion.

After a long while, Paul withdrew his finger to be covered in another thick layer of lube. It slipped in readily, the second time, which Paul took as a promising sign—he could now use his whole finger, even make short thrusts with minimal resistance from John’s body.

“Think you can take another?” Paul murmured.

There was a delay, but John’s answering _yeah_ still managed a note of wry humor. Paul was past being irritated by the sarcasm—right now he was just glad that John had that much presence of mind.

As a middle finger was slathered in lube, Paul pondered how he was meant to go about fitting it in. _Do I put them both in at once? Or…if I used one first, then put the other in with it? Would that be more…what, gradual?_ He decided to start again with the forefinger, which he slipped in to the knuckle and wiggled around a bit. Then his middle finger prodded at the opening, peeking in slightly. Paul felt John stiffen. He rubbed soothing little patterns onto his lower back with his free hand. (Ordinarily, John might’ve protested the gentle ministrations, and Paul took it as evidence of the weirdness of this situation that he merely huffed and allowed it.) Once John had relaxed, Paul started pressing the fingers in—withdrawing, again, to add lube—keeping them squeezed tightly together until they were sunk to the hilt. He held still as a few minutes passed, just allowing John to adjust and stop spasming against the digits. Then, slowly, Paul started scissoring his fingers.

Paul was drawn out of his businesslike headspace, little by little, by silent wonderment at the reactions he got from John’s body. He’d never really thought of _that_ organ as anything other than a purpose-built chute, so he was struck by the way the muscles squeezed and slackened and pushed against him. It was a weirdly comforting idea—that John could feel him in there, and was moving _with_ him. Paul carried on with new confidence in his twists and thrusts. He got daring enough to try a curl of his fingers, rubbing against the front wall.

John’s response was fierce and immediate: the muscles of his back pulled _hard_ , and Paul heard a sharp inhale from the head of the bed.

“Sorry! Sorry!” he yelped, fingers snapping back straight. “I didn’t mean, er…won’t do that again.” Paul held his hand deathly still, blood pumping in his ears.

There was shuffling from above, and the sound of John’s voice—too muffled from where he’d reburied it in the pillow for Paul to make out the words.

“…sorry?”

John took his time turning his head to the side. Paul noticed, with a little surprise, that a new flush had settled on his cheekbone. “You…I mean, you _can_.”

A beat of silence.

“Huh?”

“You _can_ , erm. Do that again.”

The gears finally turned in Paul’s head, and his brow furrowed in disapproval. “Not if it hurts you, John.”

“It doesn’t.” There was a moment, before John readjusted his arm over his face, where Paul could swear the rosy colour on his cheeks had deepened. “It was actually, er… _less uncomfortable_ , that way. A bit.”

“O- _kaaay_ …” Paul looked back down at his fingers with a frown on his brow, reassessing angles. If John said it was better curved downwards…

Paul turned his palm down towards the bed. A tad shaken, he set about making space between the walls with gentle little movements. He let his fingers explore John’s opening—massaging different areas until the walls learned to twitch but not tighten. He’d curled his fingers again to rub at the front wall, when John’s hand was suddenly there, grappling at his wrist.

“Paul!” The breathiness to his tone made Paul start. “Paul, you need to…just get to it, mate.”

The younger boy frowned. “You need another finger.”

“I’m _fine_. I think I know me own arse.” The comment was meant to be sardonic, Paul reckoned, but that effect was more or less ruined by its coming out as a rasp.

“ _One more_ ,” was Paul’s firm reply.

The third finger was less exploratory, more business. After heavy use of lube and continuous lower-back massage (which John had finally seemed to accept without fuss), Paul could thrust his fingers more or less freely. And thank _God_ for that—while the last thing he wanted to do was hurt John in a rush to get inside him, the last few minutes of prep, with John laying quiet and compliant, Paul’s fingers disappearing into his body…well, anyway. Paul’s cock was all but weeping with envy in his briefs.

Paul withdrew his fingers a final time from John’s hole, but instead of stopping near the rim to thrust back in, he pulled them out completely with a satisfying little _pop_. 

_“Hnn—!”_

Paul jolted at the high-pitched noise that pierced the room. But he couldn’t have been more surprised than the boy underneath, judging by the way his face seemed to be trying to burrow into the bed. Paul lowered a hand to stroke John’s back. Wouldn’t do for the poor lad to get all bothered now— _they were so close!_

With that thought, Paul lumbered out of bed to tug off his Y-fronts, and squeezed more of the tube’s contents into his hand for what was intended as a perfunctory lubing-up. But noble intentions died a quiet death as his hand wrapped around his cock. _Finally_ —after so long sitting neglected in his briefs, the wet friction was some type of heaven. _Just a second longer…_

Dark lashes fell onto Paul’s cheeks as he stroked, just for a moment indulging himself in that simple pleasure. They went to half-lids as his eyes rolled back—and caught on a flash of amber that made him pause, blink his eyes open.

John was watching him over his shoulder, eyes intense as ever, staring at his cock with an odd, open-mouthed look on his face that made Paul flush and drop his hand. He brushed it off with a cleared throat and a knee on the mattress, ignoring the heavy gaze that clug to him.

“If it alright if I…?” Paul let the rest be assumed as he climbed back between John’s legs.

John turned his face back down. Spoken into the pillow: “Yeah. Yeah, go ‘head.”

Paul nodded, though John couldn’t see it, and took himself back in hand.

He gave a light push inwards. Just as the rim started to give, he withdrew; John had started shuddering, _harshly_ , and Paul wanted him relaxed before he went all the way. He repeated the movements—trying, as he’d done before, to help John get used to the feeling. _In a bit, out; in a bit, out…_

“Jesus Ch— _Paul_.”

Paul had to blink his eyes back into focus. “Huh?”

“What the _fuck_ ‘re ye doing down there?”

His voice wasn’t _angry_ , per se, but there was a thrumming tension to it that made Paul’s face burn. He hoped he wasn’t bollocksing this whole thing already.

“Um. Stretchin’ ya?”

John groaned, out of frustration rather than pleasure. “Already done that. Jus’… _get inside_ , lad.”

Paul’s head nodded automatically in response to the forceful tone, but stilled as the meaning of the words dropped heavy in his stomach.

_Inside_.

Right.

Paul took a deep breath and pushed again at the entrance, this time with a little more force. It didn’t take much for him to squeeze beyond the rim into the slick canal. The well-stretched, well-lubed, _impossibly tight_ hole. (Fuck.)

Paul’s face had screwed up, his thighs gone stiff with the effort not to buck at the hips. ‘Cause oh _, Jesus_ —John was soft and wet and _warm_ inside, and Paul had to force himself to breathe because this was supposed to be a _non-scarring experience_ and he was seconds from collapsing in the most compromising position possible. Paul prised his eyes open to get reoriented, only to face the sight of himself nestled between John’s arse cheeks. He gave a helpless whimper.

Paul cast his eyes pleadingly towards the top of the bed, and it wasn’t long before John gave him the nod to press further. Thank _fuck_. (If this was as far as they’d got after _all that_ , he knew John would have his balls for it—if not by violent means, than by their shrivelling away at the humiliation of creaming himself with only the head in.) Paul took a deep cooling breath, and pushed on.

The younger man had to fight hard to ignore the sluggish, throbbing feelings shooting back up his spine as he buried himself inside. John was all around him, still so tight, still so hot, but not _enough_ —it was near maddening, like a hand brushing gently over an itch. Paul grit his teeth hard. Slowly, half-inch by half-inch, he settled inside, and just sat there for a minute or two. Just trying to breathe.

This time, before Paul could even think to worry about it, it was _John_ who started moving. The boy on top gasped at the sudden feeling of hips rocking up against him—only tiny thrusts, at first, but finally scratching Paul right where he’d needed it, sending bursts of heady relief to mix with the rush of new pleasures. Each time he thrust in, John's muscles would push back—before suddenly giving in, hole gripping as if to pull him all inside. Then, when Paul withdrew, they’d keep him there in a fleshy vice grip, before smoothening and practically pushing him out. John trembled whenever that happened. The farther the pull-out after a thrust, the more violently John would shake around him, like Paul was the last stone keeping his structure from tumbling.

Intimately attuned as the two boys were after years of friendship, it didn’t take long for them to fall into a common rhythm. Paul listened to the steady creaking of the mattress, light slapping of skin, and had the giddy thought that they were _getting the hang of it._ Until a need for cool air forced John to turn his face to the side, that is—and Paul’s breath lost its hard-won rhythm. 

John’s face was the image of strain. Heavy eyebrows cinched tight, lip pinched white between his teeth—nostrils flaring with each pull of oxygen into his shuddering lungs. Paul was drawn to the set of the his jaw, that stubborn little clench that usually preceded thrown fists. His light brown teddy boy curls rubbed into frizz over the pillow.

_Handsome lad_. 

Paul’s heart swelled at the sight of him, would have been _bleeding_ at the near-pain expression if he hadn’t been so very close to John’s head. Near enough to catch the noises he tried to repress. John was making all sorts of little moans and gasps that Paul knew well—having spent the better part of the last year studying those sounds, and how to cause them, with the sort of dogged enthusiasm he’d only ever shown towards a guitar. _That’s how he hisses when I grab his crotch in his drainies_ , his aroused brain marveled. _That’s how he groans when I jerk him off. That’s what he sounds like when I get him in my throat._

And damnit if that insight—that John made the same noises with a mouth around him as he did with dick _inside_ him—didn’t fill Paul with pleasant shivers right down to his curling toes. That, and a single-minded determination to make John make _more_ of those sounds—as loud and as long as possible.

Paul had a fleeting thought back to the fingers he’d curled forward inside John— _more comfortable_ , he’d said. He aimed his next thrust slightly downwards, and wasn’t disappointed—the groan John let out was more of a deep growl. As Paul experimented with different angles, John’s voice was coming out hoarse and strangled, like each moan put up a kicking fight as it was pulled from his throat.

Feeling close to delirious, Paul nosed at the delicate hairs on the nape of John’s neck. “You like this?” he blurted.

Stark as red ink dropped on tissue paper, heat bloomed over John’s cheeks. He seemed to be trying to speak, but cut himself off quickly when only more choked sounds came out.

“ _I_ like it,” Paul continued, mind too pleasure-polluted to feel self-conscious about the admission. “I like it a _lot_ , Johnny, you—you feel so bloody _good_ , y’know.”

A louder sound—this one a half-sob, half-moan—erupted from the lad below. His hips started to thrash; Paul, startled, leaned more weight on his elbows to avoid being bucked off. With minor palpitations of his heart, he realised that John was trying to shove a hand beneath himself, and gladly reached his own left hand down to help him.

The cloth beneath John’s hips was so wet that Paul’s first thought was that he’d come already—until his palm wrapped around a desperate, had-to-be-painful hardness. John moaned and lifted his hips up off the bed to give Paul a better grip. This changed the angle a bit, so Paul was grinding his hips down into John’s, and their thrusts soon devolved into wild rutting.

This was the end, or close to it, Paul knew. But he couldn’t really give a damn about that while rubbing his body against John’s, slurring loving nonsense into his friend’s neck and thoroughly enjoying the feeling of their hips rolling together.

“ _Paul…_ ”

Said man’s eyes flew open to look at John, whose brows had taken on a helpless slant. Paul slowed, questioning, but John just pushed back harder. The walls of his hole had started to spasm around Paul’s dick, and… _oh_.

“God, that’s…” Paul sped up his jerking hand and hissed at a particularly nice squeeze around him. “ _Mmm_. That’s it, Johnny.”

“Oh fu— _fuck_ —” 

And that was the end of it: John writhed on the mattress, chest heaving, cock pulsing, hand tearing at his own hair. Overwhelmed by his own orgasm. For Paul, who eased him through it with a pumping hand, it was like nothing he’d ever seen. He tried as long as he could to let John keep fucking himself back against him— _how could he not?_ —but soon enough, he had to pull back with his own shuddering groan.

“ _Shit…_ ”

In a daze, Paul watched his cock twitch and empty itself on John’s still-rocking backside. He kept rubbing mindlessly into the cleft, leaning into the climax, even as he went soft.

The first thing Paul registered over the fuzz in his ears was their breathing, sounding loud and brash in the newly-still bedroom. It was a while before Paul could make sense of anything else—an attempt at speech just brought a stupid _guh_ from his throat. His brain was fried through, it seemed. The world was simple sights, simple feelings—cold air on his sensitive length, his white mess on John’s skin, mess on his _hand_ , John’s wet hole flexing around thin air…better than _any_ pill in _any_ waiter’s pocket in _any_ German dive bar.

All of a sudden, John’s hips fell flat on the mattress, bouncing them both and pulling Paul out of his stupor. The sight of him all fucked-out and pliant on the bed pricked at Paul’s caregiving instincts. Somewhere in among all of his buzzing endorphins, a switch flipped from _post-sex haze_ to _glowing affection_ ; he paused for a breath, then stumbled abruptly from the bed. His knees wobbled their way to the bathroom.

Paul gave his hands a brisk wash in the sink, followed by some cool water for his face, and some warm water for a flannel he pulled from the cupboard, which he carried back with him to the bedroom. John was in the same position he’d left him, good as boneless—he didn’t even attempt to lift his hips to help as the towel was yanked from under him. Paul used an unsoiled area of the towel to swipe the mess off John’s back. Then he ran the washrag over the sticky residue, lingering there longer than necessary to let John enjoy its warmth. He himself enjoyed the unembarrassed way John pressed back into the feeling. _Only in the afterglow_ , it would seem. Paul pulled the damp flannel from his skin before it could get clammy. He had the thought to wipe his own private area, before flinging the towels both in a corner of the room, most likely to be stuffed into a guitar case and carried home with him later. Wouldn’t want Mimi returning from her weekend trip to find _that_. And John doing the washing for himself was probably out of the question. The lad still walked around with bleach stains on his clothes, courtesy of an ill-fated solo trip to the launderette last summer—he’d been trying to declare independence from his skeptical auntie before the band set off for Hamburg. Paul smiled fondly at the memory as he pulled sheets and blanket up over his friend in bed.

He turned off the lamp in the bedroom, and noticed that they’d left the hallway light on as well. He’d gone down the hall to switch it off when he heard a small voice calling for him. 

“Paul?”

Just as he turned around, John’s fluffy head popped out from his doorway. (His neck was visibly straining, giving Paul the funny image of him sprawled halfway in bed, half on the floor, just to avoid standing up. _Lazy sod_.)

John’s forehead wrinkled in a frown. “You’re staying, aren’t you?”

Paul, completely nude, was about to make a joke about giving Mimi’s neighbours a proper Hamburg-style show. But the earnestness on John’s face gave him pause. “Of course,” he said simply.

Once all lights were off and the door shut, a wave of suppressed tiredness swept over him, and Paul made a beeline for the bed, where John was holding up a corner of the sheet. He nestled in immediately. To his surprise, John huddled right into his side—pressing at his arm as if asking for entrance. Paul raised the limb so John could tuck himself beside him. He threaded a hand into his mate’s hair, trying not to smile too big.

“So.” Paul twirled a coppery-brown curl between his fingers. “Not too bad?”

John considered long enough that, but for the subtle shy duck of his chin, Paul thought he might not have heard.

“Nah. I wouldn’t—” he cleared his throat. “Wouldn’t mind…doing it again, sometime. If you wanted.” His fingers were back to fiddling with the pillowcase threads, and Paul felt his affection glow even brighter. Then John seemed to realise himself and gave another sharp cough. He spoke a little gruffer, a little deeper: “‘Course, first it’s my turn.”

“…’course.” Paul could no longer hold back his grin, so he hid it in the sheets.

**Author's Note:**

> I…dunno what to say, really.


End file.
